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Prom 70 review: BBCSO/ Canellakis at the Royal Albert Hall

The American conductor displayed a total grasp of the wayward structure of Dvorák’s loveable Eighth Symphony. A performance to treasure

Geoff Brown

September 7 2017, 12:01am, The Times

Karina Canellakis made her Proms debut with ravenous enthusiasm

★★★★☆Is she the new Mirga? Comparisons with Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra’s lightning bolt, definitely came to mind as the American firecracker Karina Canellakis made her Proms debut, conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Take the incisive, generous hand gestures, the interpretive probing, plus the ravenous enthusiasm of youth (well, comparatively: Canellakis is 35). And brio, piles of brio. The only difference is that Canellakis doesn’t try to conduct and be a ballerina at the same time.

Conductor and orchestra reached their peak in the first movement of Dvorák’s Eighth Symphony, which was shaped with microscopic precision, yet still with its hot emotions and natural flow intact. Bright little subtleties in phrasing sparkled from the woodwinds. In the third movement’s trio section an…

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